Here's a few Mead recipes I stumbled on. Nothing like a cold mead and some brisket on a sunny afternoon
Basic Small Mead
Source: Cher Feinstein (crf@pine.circa.ufl.edu)
Ingredients:
2-3 cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
2 thin slices ginger
2-4 teaspoons orange peel
2 pounds honey
yeast
1/4 cup vodka or grain alcohol
Procedure:
In a 1-gallon pot, simmer cloves (lightly cracked), cinnamon (broken),
and ginger. Add orange peel. The amount of orange peel will vary depend-
ing on type of honey used. Use less orange peel with orange blossom
honey, for example. Simmer.
Add water to bring volume to 3 quarts. Return to simmer. Add honey,
stirring constantly. Do not boil! Skim off any white scum. If scum is
yellow, reduce heat. When no more scum forms, remove from heat, cover
pot, and leave overnight. The next day, strain to remove as much spice
particles as possible. Pitch yeast. Replace pot cover.
Twelve hours later, rack mead to 1-gallon jug, leaving dregs of yeast.
Top off jug, bringing to base of neck. Take a piece of clean paper
towel, fold into quarters, and put over mouth of jug. Seal with rubber
band. Ferment for 36 hours, replacing paper towel whenever it becomes
fouled. Refrigerate 8-12 hours. Rack to new jug and put back in
refrigerator for 12 hours. Add 1/4 cup vodka to kill yeast. Rack to
fresh jug. Refrigerate 3-4 days. Bottle.
Comments:
This is a quickie mead, drinkable in 2 weeks, however, it does improve
with age. Aging at least a couple months is recommended. This mead is
excellent chilled.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 2 days
Secondary Ferment: 2 weeks
Prickly Pear Cactus Mead
Source: John Isenhour (LLUG_JI.DENISON.BITNET)
Ingredients:
20 pounds Mesquite honey
75-100 ripe prickly pear cactus fruits
2 packs sherry wine yeast
Procedure:
See Papazian's book. This recipe was based on it.
Comments:
This is Dave Spaulding's version that won the grand prize at the 1986
Arizona State Fair.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.158
Final Gravity: 1.050
Secondary Ferment: 5 months
Blueberry Mead
Source: Jonathan Corbet (gaia!jon@handies.ucar.edu)
Ingredients (for 6-1/2 gallons):
7-10 pounds fresh blueberries
1-2 pounds corn sugar
1-2 ounces hops (Cascades is fine)
10 pounds honey
yeast
lemon grass tea (optional)
Procedure:
To make 6-1/2 gallons of mead, Boil the honey, sugar, and hops for at
least an hour (although boiling honey is not favored by most digest
subscribers, it works fine and is the method used by Papazian). Clean
berries and mash well. Put mashed berries, hot wort, and enough water
to make 6-1/2 gallons into a fermenter. Pitch yeast. After one week,
strain out berries and rack to secondary. Ferment at least one more
month and then bottle, priming with corn sugar and perhaps some lemon
grass tea. Age 6 months to a year.
Comments:
This mead usually comes out quite dry. This recipe makes 6-1/2 gallons.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 1 week
Peach Melomel
Source: Michael Bergman (bergman%odin.m2c.org@ RELAY.CS.NET)
Ingredients:
6 pounds peaches
3/4 pint elderflowers
2-1/2 pounds acacia honey
1/30 ounce tannin
Graves yeast
1/4 ounce tartaric acid
1/4 ounce malic acid
Procedure:
Press peaches (after removing pits). Dissolve honey in 4 pints warm
water, blend in peach juice along with acid, tannin, and nutrients. Add
100 ppm sulfite (2 campden tablets). After 24 hours, add yeast starter,
allow to ferment 7 days before adding elderflowers. Ferment on flowers
for 3 days then strain off flowers and top off to 1 gallon with cold
water. Ferment until specific gravity drops to 10, then rack. Rack
again when gravity drops to 5, and add 1 tablet campden. Rack again when
when a heavy deposit forms, or after 3 months, whichever comes first.
Add another campden tablet. Rack again every 3-4 months, adding a tablet
after every second racking.
Comments:
This recipe is based on procedures outlined in Making Mead, by Bryan
Acton and Peter Duncan. They advocate the use of campden rather than
boiling because they feel that after boiling for a long time most of the
essences of the honey are gone. Read the "Basic Procedures" section of
Acton & Duncan for more info.
Riesling Pyment
Source: Jackie Brown (BROWN@MSUKBS.BITNET)
Ingredients:
4-1/2 pounds wildflower honey
5-1/2 pounds partial blueberry honey
2 tablespoons acid blend
1 tablespoon pectic enzyme
4 pounds Alexander's Johanissberg Riesling extract
1 pack Red Star champagne yeast
Procedure:
Boil honey, acid, enzyme and Riesling extract for 1 hour (I have since
learned that honey is best not boiled; subsequent batches have been made
by holding the mixture for 2 hours). Cool and pitch yeast. Rack to
secondary after 8 days. Bottle after 4 months.
Comments:
This is more winey than your straight mead, but very pleasant. Medium
dry and spritzig---very nice as a table wine. Those of you set up to
crush your own grapes might try a grape honey mix. A drink of noble
history!
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 8 days
Secondary Ferment: 48 days
Cyser
Source: Arun Welch (welch@cis.ohio-state.edu)
Ingredients:
4 gallons fresh cider (no Pot.Sorb)
5 to 6 pounds honey
1 gallon water
1 large stick cinnamon
5 cloves
2 pods cardamom
2 packs Red Star Pasteur champagne yeast
Procedure:
Simmer the spices in the water for 10 minutes. Dissolve honey. Simmer
and strain crud until there isn't any more. Transfer to primary, along
with cider (this should bring primary to a good pitching temperature).
Pitch yeast and wait 1 to 2 weeks for the foam to die down. Transfer to
secondary. Ferment in secondary 3-6 months. Bottle and age another 3 or
more months.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 1-1/2 week
Secondary Ferment: 3-6 months
Wassail Mead
Source: Mal Card (card@apollo.hp.com)
Ingredients:
12-1/2 pounds light clover honey
4 teaspoons acid blend
5 teaspoons yeast nutrient
wine yeast
Procedure:
Add honey, acid blend, and yeast nutrient to 2 gallons of water and boil
for 1/2 hour. Add this to 1-1/2 gallons of cold water inthe primary
fermenter. Pitch yeast when the temperature reaches 70-75 degrees. Use a
blow off tube if you use a carboy. Allow fermentation to proceed for 3
weeks or more (up to several months). When the mead becomes fairly
clear, rack to secondary. Attach air-lock. Leave the mead to sit at
least 3 weeks. When yeast settles to bottom and is clear, it is ready to
bottle. Adding 3/4 cup of corn sugar at bottling will produce a sparkl-
ing mead. Sparkling meads should not be made with an original gravity
higher than 1.090.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.100
Final Gravity: 1.000
Quick Mead
Source: Kevin Karplus (karplus@ararat.ucsc.edu)
Ingredients:
3 gallons water
5 pounds honey
1/3 cup jasmine tea
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
ale yeast
Procedure:
Boil water, adding tea and spices. Remove from heat and stir in honey.
(Some mead makers boil the honey, skimming the scum as it forms). Cover
boiled water, and set aside to cool (this usually takes a long time, so
start on the next step). Make a yeast starter solution by boiling a cup
of water and a tablespoon or two of honey. Add starter to cooled liquid.
Cover and ferment using blow tube or fermentation lock. Rack two or
three times to get rid of sediment.
The less honey, the lighter the drink, and the quicker it can be made.
1 pound per gallon is the minimum, 5 pounds per gallon is about the
maximum for a sweet dessert wine. This mead is a metheglin because of
the tea. The yeast is pitched one day after starting the batch, the crud
skimmed about 10 days later, then wait 3 days and rack to secondary.
Wait 2 more weeks and bottle---about 4 weeks from start to finish.
Comments:
Yield is 3.1 gallons. Excellent clarity, fairly sweet flavor, slight
sediment, light gold color. An excellent batch.
Sack Mead
Source: Kevin Karplus (karplus@ararat.ucsc.edu)
Ingredients:
3 gallons water
16 pounds honey
1/4 cup keemun tea
1/4 cup oolong tea
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon whole anise seed
18 clusters cardamom, crushed
20 allspice, crushed
1 inch galingale root, crushed
yeast
unflavored gelatin (fining)
Procedure:
Boil water, adding tea and spices. Remove from heat and stir in honey.
(Some mead makers boil the honey, skimming the scum as it forms). Cover
boiled water, and set aside to cool (this usually takes a long time, so
start on the next step). Make a yeast starter solution by boiling a cup
of water and a tablespoon or two of honey. Add starter to cooled liquid.
Cover and ferment using blow tube or fermentation lock. Rack two or
three times to get rid of sediment.
This recipe took about 6-1/2 months from brewing to bottling. First
rack
took place 15 days after brewing. 2nd rack 3 weeks later. 3rd rack 3
months later. Gelatin added 1 month later. Bottled about 2--1/2 months
later. Yield 3.7 gallons.
Comments:
Sweet, smooth, potent. A dessert wine. This is perhaps the best of my 20
or more batches of mead.
Mead
Source: Carl West (eisen@kopf.hq.ileaf.com)
Ingredients (for 1 gallon):
1 gallon bottled water
2 pounds generic honey
1 Medium lemon zest and juice
1/4 teaspoon Red Star Champagne yeast
Procedure:
Simmer these together and skim off the scum as it rises. If you wait for
it all to rise so you can skim just once and you miss the moment, the
scum sinks, never to rise again. Pitch yeast when cool and kept it at
room temp (65-72) for 5 weeks where it bubbled about once every 5
seconds for the whole time.
Comments:
It was still bubbling when I bottled. Yes, I plan to begin drinking it
soon, before it becomes a grenade six-pack.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 5 weeks
Melomel
Source: Michael Zenter (zentner@ecn.purdue.edu)
Ingredients:
16 pounds wildflower honey
5 gallons water
5 kiwis
3 star fruits
1 pound cranberries
acid blend to .45 tartaric
MeV liquid mead yeast culture
Procedure:
Pasteurized the honey and fruit at about 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes,
ran through a chiller, pitched with VERY vigorous aeration. Let it
sit
with the fruit in for 7 days, then rack off.
Comments:
Now for the weirdness. I pitched at about 6 PM. No real activity the
following day until about 4 PM when all of the sudden, there was a
violent eruption of foam out of the airlock. No warning at all.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.124
Sweet Mead
Source: Rob Derrick (rxxd@doc.lanl.gov) posted this recipe from C. J.
Lindberg
Ingredients (for 1 gallon):
5 pounds Honey (Smith's brand)
1 teaspoon Citric Acid
1/4 pint Strong Tea
1 package Champagne Yeast
Yeast Nutrient
Procedure:
Boil 1 quart of water, honey and citric acid for seven minutes. Then the
add the tea and boil for five more minutes. The mixture was then added
to 48 FL. oz. of cold water in the one gallon jug. The wort was then
cooled overnight to 70 degrees. Add yeast and yeast nutrient. Ferment
for four months.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.153
Primary Ferment: 4 months
Blueberry Mead Recipe
Source: Jay Hersh (hersh@expo.lcs.mit.edu)
Ingredients:
12 pounds Wildflower Honey
2 pounds blueberries
2 teaspoons gypsum or water crystals
3 teaspoons yeast nutrient
1 ounce Hallertauer Leaf hops
1 tablespoon Irish Moss
2 packs Red Star Pastuer Champagne yeast
Procedure:
Boil hops, yeast nutrient and water crystals for 30 - 45 minutes. Add
Irish Moss in the last 15-30 minutes of the boil. Turn off the heat and
add the honey and the blueberries, steep at 180-190 degrees for 15 min-
utes minimum (30 minutes is ok too). Pour the whole mixture to a bucket
or carboy and let cool (or use a wort chiller if you have one). Add the
yeast at the temperature recommended on the packet (85-90 degrees I
think). Let it ferment. Rack the mead off the fruit after 6-7 days (you
can actually let it go longer if you like). Let ferment for 4 more weeks
in the secondary then bottle. Other people like to rack their meads at
3-4 week intervals and let it keep going in the carboy. I don't think
too much fermentation went on after the first 4 weeks (I made this in
July so it fermented fast), so if you keep racking you'll basically be
doing some of the aging in the carboy, otherwise it will age in the
bottles.
Comments:
This mead had a terrific rose color. It took over 8 months to really
age, and was fantastic after 2 years. It had a nice blueberry nose to
it, and quite a kick.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 1 week
Secondary Ferment: 4 weeks
Standby Mead
Source: Michael Tighe (tighe@inmet.camb.inmet.com)
Ingredients (for 1 gallon):
1 gallon Water
2 pounds honey
1 Thumb size piece of ginger
2 Tablespoons Orange peel (no white pith please)
Champagne yeast
Procedure:
Bring the honey and water to a boil skimming off the white and brown
foam as you heat it. Simmer/skim for about 5 minutes per gallon (5
gallons = 20 min). When the boiling is almost done, add the ginger and
orange peel. Cool (I usually let it cool "naturally"). Work with yeast
(Werka Mead Yeast is good, champagne or general purpose wine yeast will
do). Bottle after two weeks (while it's still sweet and still quite
active). Refrigerate the bottles after another two weeks (to avoid the
glass grenade syndrome and to make the yeast settle out of the mead).
Comments:
To quote the original source: "It will be quick and pleasant from the
very start and will keep for a month or more." Other variations
included:
Add lots more honey and let it ferment till it stops. Bottle and wait a
month or more, you get champagne.
Use some other citris fruit peel, such as lemon or grapefruit.
Add some other fruit flavoring (crushed berries of some sort).
Load up on the ginger (my friend makes Death by Ginger by using pounds
of ginger per gallon!)
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 2-3 weeks
Honey Ale (Mead)
Source: David Haberman (habermand@afal-edwards.af.mil)
Ingredients:
4 pounds Buckwheat honey
4 ounces Styrian Goldings hops
7 grams Red Star Ale yeast
1 teaspoon acid blend
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 cup corn sugar
Procedure:
Boil honey and 3 gallons water with 3 ounces hops for 47 minutes, add 1
ounce last 7 minutes. Before adding hops, skim off the scum that rises
to the top. Cool and pour into fermenter and top to 5 gallons. Add acid
blend, nutrients and re-hydrated yeast. When fermentation completes, mix
with 1 cup sugar, a little yeast and bottle.
Comments:
This was the very first beer I ever made and 7 years ago most people I
knew didn't worry about the bittering units of the hops. I would guess
that they were around 3% AAU's. Red star was the main yeast used at the
time. Yeast nutrient is necessary since the honey does not have the
required food for the beasties. I used buckwheat honey because I like
the flavor. Do not drink this beer until at least 1 month after bottl-
ing. Since it is made from honey the ale improves with age. A bottle
that I saved for 4 and a half years tasted so good that I wish I had
saved more! The beer had a very nice honey aroma and flavor. The hops
were enough to balance the sweetness. I don't think that I would change
anything except try to make more and keep it a while before drinking.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.031
Final Gravity: 0.997
Ginger Mead
Source: Brian Bliss (bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu)
Ingredients (for 6 gallons):
15 pounds clover honey
181 grams grated ginger
2 tablespoons gypsum
3 teaspoons yeast energizer
1 ounce Hallertauer hops (boil)
1/2 ounce Hallertauer hops (finish)
4-5 pounds oranges
juice from 1 orange
1/2 teaspoon irish moss
champagne yeast (Red Star)
Procedure:
Combine honey, ginger, orange juice, 1/2 ounce of hops, and yeast ener-
gizer and bring to a boil. Remove a small amount of wort to be used for
a yeast starter (Allow starter to cool, and add yeast). Boil the remain-
ing wort 30 minutes. Add another 1/2 oz hops and boil for additional 30
minutes. Turn off heat. Cut 4-5 lbs of oranges in half, and squeeze into
the wort. Toss in orange halves after squeezing. Let sit 12 min. Strain
into fermenter sparged into cold water, while removing the orange halves
and squeezing the last bit out (with clean hands---very hot---ouch!).
Comments:
After several months it's just getting drinkable now. If I let a bottle
sit in the fridge for about a week, and decant very carefully, it's very
good, and gives one heck of a buzz.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.088
Final Gravity: 0.998
Primary Ferment: 12 days at 65--70 degrees
Secondary Ferment: 1 month
Basic Small Mead
Source: Cher Feinstein (crf@pine.circa.ufl.edu)
Ingredients:
2-3 cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
2 thin slices ginger
2-4 teaspoons orange peel
2 pounds honey
yeast
1/4 cup vodka or grain alcohol
Procedure:
In a 1-gallon pot, simmer cloves (lightly cracked), cinnamon (broken),
and ginger. Add orange peel. The amount of orange peel will vary depend-
ing on type of honey used. Use less orange peel with orange blossom
honey, for example. Simmer.
Add water to bring volume to 3 quarts. Return to simmer. Add honey,
stirring constantly. Do not boil! Skim off any white scum. If scum is
yellow, reduce heat. When no more scum forms, remove from heat, cover
pot, and leave overnight. The next day, strain to remove as much spice
particles as possible. Pitch yeast. Replace pot cover.
Twelve hours later, rack mead to 1-gallon jug, leaving dregs of yeast.
Top off jug, bringing to base of neck. Take a piece of clean paper
towel, fold into quarters, and put over mouth of jug. Seal with rubber
band. Ferment for 36 hours, replacing paper towel whenever it becomes
fouled. Refrigerate 8-12 hours. Rack to new jug and put back in
refrigerator for 12 hours. Add 1/4 cup vodka to kill yeast. Rack to
fresh jug. Refrigerate 3-4 days. Bottle.
Comments:
This is a quickie mead, drinkable in 2 weeks, however, it does improve
with age. Aging at least a couple months is recommended. This mead is
excellent chilled.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 2 days
Secondary Ferment: 2 weeks
Prickly Pear Cactus Mead
Source: John Isenhour (LLUG_JI.DENISON.BITNET)
Ingredients:
20 pounds Mesquite honey
75-100 ripe prickly pear cactus fruits
2 packs sherry wine yeast
Procedure:
See Papazian's book. This recipe was based on it.
Comments:
This is Dave Spaulding's version that won the grand prize at the 1986
Arizona State Fair.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.158
Final Gravity: 1.050
Secondary Ferment: 5 months
Blueberry Mead
Source: Jonathan Corbet (gaia!jon@handies.ucar.edu)
Ingredients (for 6-1/2 gallons):
7-10 pounds fresh blueberries
1-2 pounds corn sugar
1-2 ounces hops (Cascades is fine)
10 pounds honey
yeast
lemon grass tea (optional)
Procedure:
To make 6-1/2 gallons of mead, Boil the honey, sugar, and hops for at
least an hour (although boiling honey is not favored by most digest
subscribers, it works fine and is the method used by Papazian). Clean
berries and mash well. Put mashed berries, hot wort, and enough water
to make 6-1/2 gallons into a fermenter. Pitch yeast. After one week,
strain out berries and rack to secondary. Ferment at least one more
month and then bottle, priming with corn sugar and perhaps some lemon
grass tea. Age 6 months to a year.
Comments:
This mead usually comes out quite dry. This recipe makes 6-1/2 gallons.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 1 week
Peach Melomel
Source: Michael Bergman (bergman%odin.m2c.org@ RELAY.CS.NET)
Ingredients:
6 pounds peaches
3/4 pint elderflowers
2-1/2 pounds acacia honey
1/30 ounce tannin
Graves yeast
1/4 ounce tartaric acid
1/4 ounce malic acid
Procedure:
Press peaches (after removing pits). Dissolve honey in 4 pints warm
water, blend in peach juice along with acid, tannin, and nutrients. Add
100 ppm sulfite (2 campden tablets). After 24 hours, add yeast starter,
allow to ferment 7 days before adding elderflowers. Ferment on flowers
for 3 days then strain off flowers and top off to 1 gallon with cold
water. Ferment until specific gravity drops to 10, then rack. Rack
again when gravity drops to 5, and add 1 tablet campden. Rack again when
when a heavy deposit forms, or after 3 months, whichever comes first.
Add another campden tablet. Rack again every 3-4 months, adding a tablet
after every second racking.
Comments:
This recipe is based on procedures outlined in Making Mead, by Bryan
Acton and Peter Duncan. They advocate the use of campden rather than
boiling because they feel that after boiling for a long time most of the
essences of the honey are gone. Read the "Basic Procedures" section of
Acton & Duncan for more info.
Riesling Pyment
Source: Jackie Brown (BROWN@MSUKBS.BITNET)
Ingredients:
4-1/2 pounds wildflower honey
5-1/2 pounds partial blueberry honey
2 tablespoons acid blend
1 tablespoon pectic enzyme
4 pounds Alexander's Johanissberg Riesling extract
1 pack Red Star champagne yeast
Procedure:
Boil honey, acid, enzyme and Riesling extract for 1 hour (I have since
learned that honey is best not boiled; subsequent batches have been made
by holding the mixture for 2 hours). Cool and pitch yeast. Rack to
secondary after 8 days. Bottle after 4 months.
Comments:
This is more winey than your straight mead, but very pleasant. Medium
dry and spritzig---very nice as a table wine. Those of you set up to
crush your own grapes might try a grape honey mix. A drink of noble
history!
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 8 days
Secondary Ferment: 48 days
Cyser
Source: Arun Welch (welch@cis.ohio-state.edu)
Ingredients:
4 gallons fresh cider (no Pot.Sorb)
5 to 6 pounds honey
1 gallon water
1 large stick cinnamon
5 cloves
2 pods cardamom
2 packs Red Star Pasteur champagne yeast
Procedure:
Simmer the spices in the water for 10 minutes. Dissolve honey. Simmer
and strain crud until there isn't any more. Transfer to primary, along
with cider (this should bring primary to a good pitching temperature).
Pitch yeast and wait 1 to 2 weeks for the foam to die down. Transfer to
secondary. Ferment in secondary 3-6 months. Bottle and age another 3 or
more months.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 1-1/2 week
Secondary Ferment: 3-6 months
Wassail Mead
Source: Mal Card (card@apollo.hp.com)
Ingredients:
12-1/2 pounds light clover honey
4 teaspoons acid blend
5 teaspoons yeast nutrient
wine yeast
Procedure:
Add honey, acid blend, and yeast nutrient to 2 gallons of water and boil
for 1/2 hour. Add this to 1-1/2 gallons of cold water inthe primary
fermenter. Pitch yeast when the temperature reaches 70-75 degrees. Use a
blow off tube if you use a carboy. Allow fermentation to proceed for 3
weeks or more (up to several months). When the mead becomes fairly
clear, rack to secondary. Attach air-lock. Leave the mead to sit at
least 3 weeks. When yeast settles to bottom and is clear, it is ready to
bottle. Adding 3/4 cup of corn sugar at bottling will produce a sparkl-
ing mead. Sparkling meads should not be made with an original gravity
higher than 1.090.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.100
Final Gravity: 1.000
Quick Mead
Source: Kevin Karplus (karplus@ararat.ucsc.edu)
Ingredients:
3 gallons water
5 pounds honey
1/3 cup jasmine tea
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
ale yeast
Procedure:
Boil water, adding tea and spices. Remove from heat and stir in honey.
(Some mead makers boil the honey, skimming the scum as it forms). Cover
boiled water, and set aside to cool (this usually takes a long time, so
start on the next step). Make a yeast starter solution by boiling a cup
of water and a tablespoon or two of honey. Add starter to cooled liquid.
Cover and ferment using blow tube or fermentation lock. Rack two or
three times to get rid of sediment.
The less honey, the lighter the drink, and the quicker it can be made.
1 pound per gallon is the minimum, 5 pounds per gallon is about the
maximum for a sweet dessert wine. This mead is a metheglin because of
the tea. The yeast is pitched one day after starting the batch, the crud
skimmed about 10 days later, then wait 3 days and rack to secondary.
Wait 2 more weeks and bottle---about 4 weeks from start to finish.
Comments:
Yield is 3.1 gallons. Excellent clarity, fairly sweet flavor, slight
sediment, light gold color. An excellent batch.
Sack Mead
Source: Kevin Karplus (karplus@ararat.ucsc.edu)
Ingredients:
3 gallons water
16 pounds honey
1/4 cup keemun tea
1/4 cup oolong tea
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon whole anise seed
18 clusters cardamom, crushed
20 allspice, crushed
1 inch galingale root, crushed
yeast
unflavored gelatin (fining)
Procedure:
Boil water, adding tea and spices. Remove from heat and stir in honey.
(Some mead makers boil the honey, skimming the scum as it forms). Cover
boiled water, and set aside to cool (this usually takes a long time, so
start on the next step). Make a yeast starter solution by boiling a cup
of water and a tablespoon or two of honey. Add starter to cooled liquid.
Cover and ferment using blow tube or fermentation lock. Rack two or
three times to get rid of sediment.
This recipe took about 6-1/2 months from brewing to bottling. First
rack
took place 15 days after brewing. 2nd rack 3 weeks later. 3rd rack 3
months later. Gelatin added 1 month later. Bottled about 2--1/2 months
later. Yield 3.7 gallons.
Comments:
Sweet, smooth, potent. A dessert wine. This is perhaps the best of my 20
or more batches of mead.
Mead
Source: Carl West (eisen@kopf.hq.ileaf.com)
Ingredients (for 1 gallon):
1 gallon bottled water
2 pounds generic honey
1 Medium lemon zest and juice
1/4 teaspoon Red Star Champagne yeast
Procedure:
Simmer these together and skim off the scum as it rises. If you wait for
it all to rise so you can skim just once and you miss the moment, the
scum sinks, never to rise again. Pitch yeast when cool and kept it at
room temp (65-72) for 5 weeks where it bubbled about once every 5
seconds for the whole time.
Comments:
It was still bubbling when I bottled. Yes, I plan to begin drinking it
soon, before it becomes a grenade six-pack.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 5 weeks
Melomel
Source: Michael Zenter (zentner@ecn.purdue.edu)
Ingredients:
16 pounds wildflower honey
5 gallons water
5 kiwis
3 star fruits
1 pound cranberries
acid blend to .45 tartaric
MeV liquid mead yeast culture
Procedure:
Pasteurized the honey and fruit at about 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes,
ran through a chiller, pitched with VERY vigorous aeration. Let it
sit
with the fruit in for 7 days, then rack off.
Comments:
Now for the weirdness. I pitched at about 6 PM. No real activity the
following day until about 4 PM when all of the sudden, there was a
violent eruption of foam out of the airlock. No warning at all.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.124
Sweet Mead
Source: Rob Derrick (rxxd@doc.lanl.gov) posted this recipe from C. J.
Lindberg
Ingredients (for 1 gallon):
5 pounds Honey (Smith's brand)
1 teaspoon Citric Acid
1/4 pint Strong Tea
1 package Champagne Yeast
Yeast Nutrient
Procedure:
Boil 1 quart of water, honey and citric acid for seven minutes. Then the
add the tea and boil for five more minutes. The mixture was then added
to 48 FL. oz. of cold water in the one gallon jug. The wort was then
cooled overnight to 70 degrees. Add yeast and yeast nutrient. Ferment
for four months.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.153
Primary Ferment: 4 months
Blueberry Mead Recipe
Source: Jay Hersh (hersh@expo.lcs.mit.edu)
Ingredients:
12 pounds Wildflower Honey
2 pounds blueberries
2 teaspoons gypsum or water crystals
3 teaspoons yeast nutrient
1 ounce Hallertauer Leaf hops
1 tablespoon Irish Moss
2 packs Red Star Pastuer Champagne yeast
Procedure:
Boil hops, yeast nutrient and water crystals for 30 - 45 minutes. Add
Irish Moss in the last 15-30 minutes of the boil. Turn off the heat and
add the honey and the blueberries, steep at 180-190 degrees for 15 min-
utes minimum (30 minutes is ok too). Pour the whole mixture to a bucket
or carboy and let cool (or use a wort chiller if you have one). Add the
yeast at the temperature recommended on the packet (85-90 degrees I
think). Let it ferment. Rack the mead off the fruit after 6-7 days (you
can actually let it go longer if you like). Let ferment for 4 more weeks
in the secondary then bottle. Other people like to rack their meads at
3-4 week intervals and let it keep going in the carboy. I don't think
too much fermentation went on after the first 4 weeks (I made this in
July so it fermented fast), so if you keep racking you'll basically be
doing some of the aging in the carboy, otherwise it will age in the
bottles.
Comments:
This mead had a terrific rose color. It took over 8 months to really
age, and was fantastic after 2 years. It had a nice blueberry nose to
it, and quite a kick.
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 1 week
Secondary Ferment: 4 weeks
Standby Mead
Source: Michael Tighe (tighe@inmet.camb.inmet.com)
Ingredients (for 1 gallon):
1 gallon Water
2 pounds honey
1 Thumb size piece of ginger
2 Tablespoons Orange peel (no white pith please)
Champagne yeast
Procedure:
Bring the honey and water to a boil skimming off the white and brown
foam as you heat it. Simmer/skim for about 5 minutes per gallon (5
gallons = 20 min). When the boiling is almost done, add the ginger and
orange peel. Cool (I usually let it cool "naturally"). Work with yeast
(Werka Mead Yeast is good, champagne or general purpose wine yeast will
do). Bottle after two weeks (while it's still sweet and still quite
active). Refrigerate the bottles after another two weeks (to avoid the
glass grenade syndrome and to make the yeast settle out of the mead).
Comments:
To quote the original source: "It will be quick and pleasant from the
very start and will keep for a month or more." Other variations
included:
Add lots more honey and let it ferment till it stops. Bottle and wait a
month or more, you get champagne.
Use some other citris fruit peel, such as lemon or grapefruit.
Add some other fruit flavoring (crushed berries of some sort).
Load up on the ginger (my friend makes Death by Ginger by using pounds
of ginger per gallon!)
Specifics:
Primary Ferment: 2-3 weeks
Honey Ale (Mead)
Source: David Haberman (habermand@afal-edwards.af.mil)
Ingredients:
4 pounds Buckwheat honey
4 ounces Styrian Goldings hops
7 grams Red Star Ale yeast
1 teaspoon acid blend
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1 cup corn sugar
Procedure:
Boil honey and 3 gallons water with 3 ounces hops for 47 minutes, add 1
ounce last 7 minutes. Before adding hops, skim off the scum that rises
to the top. Cool and pour into fermenter and top to 5 gallons. Add acid
blend, nutrients and re-hydrated yeast. When fermentation completes, mix
with 1 cup sugar, a little yeast and bottle.
Comments:
This was the very first beer I ever made and 7 years ago most people I
knew didn't worry about the bittering units of the hops. I would guess
that they were around 3% AAU's. Red star was the main yeast used at the
time. Yeast nutrient is necessary since the honey does not have the
required food for the beasties. I used buckwheat honey because I like
the flavor. Do not drink this beer until at least 1 month after bottl-
ing. Since it is made from honey the ale improves with age. A bottle
that I saved for 4 and a half years tasted so good that I wish I had
saved more! The beer had a very nice honey aroma and flavor. The hops
were enough to balance the sweetness. I don't think that I would change
anything except try to make more and keep it a while before drinking.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.031
Final Gravity: 0.997
Ginger Mead
Source: Brian Bliss (bliss@csrd.uiuc.edu)
Ingredients (for 6 gallons):
15 pounds clover honey
181 grams grated ginger
2 tablespoons gypsum
3 teaspoons yeast energizer
1 ounce Hallertauer hops (boil)
1/2 ounce Hallertauer hops (finish)
4-5 pounds oranges
juice from 1 orange
1/2 teaspoon irish moss
champagne yeast (Red Star)
Procedure:
Combine honey, ginger, orange juice, 1/2 ounce of hops, and yeast ener-
gizer and bring to a boil. Remove a small amount of wort to be used for
a yeast starter (Allow starter to cool, and add yeast). Boil the remain-
ing wort 30 minutes. Add another 1/2 oz hops and boil for additional 30
minutes. Turn off heat. Cut 4-5 lbs of oranges in half, and squeeze into
the wort. Toss in orange halves after squeezing. Let sit 12 min. Strain
into fermenter sparged into cold water, while removing the orange halves
and squeezing the last bit out (with clean hands---very hot---ouch!).
Comments:
After several months it's just getting drinkable now. If I let a bottle
sit in the fridge for about a week, and decant very carefully, it's very
good, and gives one heck of a buzz.
Specifics:
Original Gravity: 1.088
Final Gravity: 0.998
Primary Ferment: 12 days at 65--70 degrees
Secondary Ferment: 1 month
